"Determined, Life Without Free Will."
I have no idea what that book will be about and no point to make, but the title instantly stirred-up a memory.
Soon after Prem Rawat put me out on the road with no job, no money, no car and nothing but a tattered suitcase half full of His holy photos, magazines and foot water, I took a job as a foot messenger at a large law firm doing walkers and drivers. My second week on the job, a Sr. partner and a young associate needed someone to chauffer them into Manhattan for a big closing and I volunteered.
After the successful closing, they wanted to celebrate at one of NYC's finest steak houses... me still being a vegetarian and, well, a premie fresh out of the ashram premie. (My first fish in nearly a decade was pretty good.) Over martini's, me with my water, they got into a heated debate over determined/no free will versus self-determination/free will. The Sr. partner argued for determined/no free will and the upstart argued that of course we have free will and self-determination over our destiny. After a lengthy back and forth, the Sr. partner leaned over the table and said to the upstart:
"Listen! (he might as well have added "you little squirt" ) I'm a Sr. partner and I know you want to make partner someday. If I don't want you to become a partner, then there's no way in hell that it will ever happen. Got that!? So much for your self-determination!"
They ordered yet another as we moved on to desert. Fortunately, the ride home was quiet as they both slept it off.
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PS, after I wrote that, I began to reflect on how naive, inadequate, immature and ill-prepared I was to re-engage in the real world when the ashrams closed. I can't even put into words how much I clutched the "sword of his Knowledge and the shield of his grace" - like a pacifier or a security blanket - just to make it through days like that as I desperately tried to conceal my differences and appear normal. The degree of mental and emotional stunting that occurred throughout that heavy devotional era was enormous.
Determined versus free will
